Orphan Geoffrey Braemer (Freddie Bartholomew) pretends to be a young English Lord with his con artist accomplices. After getting caught, he is sent to a mercantile marine boys school run by Captain Briggs (Charles Coburn). Terry O'Mulvaney (Mickey Rooney) is the longtime honor boy.
Mickey Rooney's stardom is rising and would soon overtake Freddie Bartholomew's childstar status. The two actors should switch roles since they fit the other characters better. Freddie is much more the high society straight boy and Mickey is the low class brawler con-man. I can do without all the sailing talk. I don't know anything about any of that. As always, one gets a sense that Mickey holds more interior acting power while Freddie is good at his specific style. This is not the best example of a boys school movie, but it's always great to have these two kids working together.
Mickey Rooney's stardom is rising and would soon overtake Freddie Bartholomew's childstar status. The two actors should switch roles since they fit the other characters better. Freddie is much more the high society straight boy and Mickey is the low class brawler con-man. I can do without all the sailing talk. I don't know anything about any of that. As always, one gets a sense that Mickey holds more interior acting power while Freddie is good at his specific style. This is not the best example of a boys school movie, but it's always great to have these two kids working together.